Success story: Court’s Human Rights Directorate settles 87% of all cases filed

PESHAWAR:

Despite receiving nearly 12,000 complaints since its inception, the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) Human Rights Directorate (HRD) has managed to decide 87% of the cases. 

Inaugurated in late 2009 by former PHC chief justice Ijaz Afzal Khan, the directorate keeps a close eye on discrimination, sexual abuse, and harassment in offices, among other things.  Residents see it as the “quickest way possible” for anyone seeking justice in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

From enforced disappearances, bodies dumped in gunny bags and cattle smuggling to ruthless tree cutting and swara (child marriage) cases, the HRD has been responsible for forwarding reports to current PHC Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, who then takes notice and directs officials concerned to act on it.

“We consider it a great achievement of our directorate when we read in newspapers that people, who were missing earlier, have reached home,” said PHC HRD Director Riffat Amir Nazir in an interview with The Express Tribune on Friday.



Nazir said the directorate has been providing justice without asking people to file cases or hire legal experts. “The majority of our clients are from lower income communities,” he added.

“We recently decided a swara case where a child was being married off to a person in order to solve a domestic dispute,” she said. “We went to Swat after the child approached us and resolved the issue in a few hours.”

Nazir said that some women also approached the directorate seeking action against workplace harassment. She added that almost all such cases have been decided.

“Harassment cases mostly occur in NGOs and other private-sector departments,” she said.  After receiving a complaint, the HRD inquires into the matter and takes it up with the heads of the concerned organisations. As a first step, a warning note is issued to the defendant.

Hameeda, an HRD beneficiary, told The Express Tribune that her husband had been picked up by the police and shifted to an undisclosed location. He was accused of sending threatening text messages from his cell phone to a police official, Abidur Rehman.

She said that her husband was arrested after police tracked down the number. The number had been transferred from her husband’s name and he was not using it by then, she said.

“They took him away and I was searching for some help to release my husband when someone told me about the HRD,” she said.  “My husband was released a few days after my case was taken up. I could not believe that I had gotten justice so quickly and that it was all free of charge.”

Other cases that come to the HRD include disputes over child custody, property disputes, politicised transfers in government departments, fraud cases, police violence and inappropriate police behaviour.  Students have also sought action against educational institutions.

Nazir said a total of 1,307 cases had been filed from January to June 2012 by the directorate out of which 1,174 have been disposed off.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2012.